How not to preserve Norwich’s city walls

Norwich City Council faces an ongoing battle to preserve the much-loved walls, with water, road salt and plants causing damage throughout the year.

Now officials at City Hall are in talks with English Heritage about making it easier to patch-up the early 14th century structures.

It is hoped the deal, known as a heritage partnership agreement, will prevent permission being required from English Heritage every time the council wants to carry out repairs on the walls.

Officials say this can be a time-consuming and costly process. …

He said: “We would like to make sure that the money from the city council is delivered to where it really needs to be – maintaining the monument so it survives.

“That’s the important thing rather than spending on paperwork and management. I think that’s a good aspiration.”

(emphases mine)

You could have no finer illustration of why Great Britain is ceasing to function; that an annual process of routine maintenance is snarled in pointless paperwork taking a year to process, and that the council has to have talks simply to do its job.